The Body Electric

Chapter 8

My hands shake as I approach the secondary reverie chair. It’s nowhere near as nice as the one Mom uses with clients—why bother cloaking it in cushions and velvet when no one can use it?

A small recess in the wall holds what I was looking for: the additional nanobots needed for someone to use the chair. I pick up the vial. The inside looks empty, all except for a tiny sprinkle of silver glitter on the bottom. When I shake the vial, the silver moves like liquid.

There are millions of microscopic nanobots in that vial.

I take a deep breath.

I know this is dangerous. I have no idea what my nanobot count is, but I know that I shouldn’t be letting any more infect my body.

But Mom developed these. And if, by taking them, I can help her...

I stride across the room to the chair, and slide the nanobot vial next to the poison-green reverie drug in the injector. One dose will give me both the drug and the bots, administered as a puff of gas in my eyes when the sonic hood turns on.

My body wants to turn and run.

Instead, I sit in the chair. It’s long and reclined, designed to make me lay down more than sit. I slide my left arm against the raised bar, connecting my cuff to the system. I jam the electrodes onto my skin and lower the sonic hood over me.

Commence joined reverie? The system asks me in warning yellow letters.

I shut my eyes, flinching even though nothing has happened yet. I think about the microscopic bots crawling over my eyes, behind them, into my brain, burrowing into grey wrinkles.

“It’ll work,” I say to myself, trying to convince myself that wishful thinking was truth.

I push the button.

The reverie chair hums with life. I have a moment to see the sparkle of the nanobots mixed with the green puff of reverie drug, and then I blink, and then—

—My body explodes with pain.

My knees jerk up toward my chest as my muscles spasm and tighten. It’s like a cramp for my whole body. Pain slices through me, shredding my muscles. I gag on bile, then gasp for air, and I’m deeply aware of the heavy thump of my heart, ricocheting in my chest.

And then—nothing.

Nothing at all. I cannot hear the sound of my beating heart. I cannot feel the warmth of life within me.

I’m dead.